


Breaking Point

by thebigbengal



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mild Language, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, References to Illness, Twin Peaks: The Return, a lot a angst but some happiness in there, toward the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 11:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13681173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebigbengal/pseuds/thebigbengal
Summary: The years have not been kind to Albert, and things are only getting stared for Tammy. Sometimes, it doesn't hurt to take a breath and let someone hug you.





	Breaking Point

Albert cringed under the neck brace as the hard clicks of high heels sped down the hall to his room. The statuesque, violet haired, young woman filling them appeared at the foot of the hospital bed bearing the exact expression he pictured since the emergency contact call was sent out. She spat the anticipated comment, “What, are you suicidal now?!”, and he braced for the slam of a heavy door on the frame, but never guessed he’d instead find the warm embrace of the young agent squeezing him tightly, or as tight as his condition permitted before he grunted in discomfort, and she backed away quickly. Tamara Preston wiped her eyes, fixed her shirt, and stood at attention before her mentor. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“Hardly,” Albert laughed.

“I just… what in the hell was going through your head?”

Albert couldn’t hide an answer from her, “The monotony of driving down the interstate during the late hours of the night, at a stage in life such as mine, can be particularly maddening. So, I decided to inject a bit of spontaneity.” He never said it had to be a _correct_ answer.

“With a near-fatal car crash?”

“Whatever keeps me awake.” Albert turns to reach for the T.V. remote, while Tammy slowly pulls up a chair and places down her bag. His attention stays put on the screen, flicking from station to station in a search for something half-interesting to cover up the awkward and nervous feeling brought on by the words building in Tammy’s gut; the sure-fire mention of what caused Albert to veer off the road in the first place. He saw Tammy sitting sadly in his peripheral, looking for just the right way to start the sentence. The T.V. was off, but Albert still stared dead ahead.

“Sheriff Frank Truman told me what he said to you before you crashed. It was about his brother, Harry.” Tammy played with her interlocked fingers, while Albert remained rooted in place. It was going to be brought up sooner or later, and when it’s the reason someone is in a hospital bed with a broken neck, it jumps to the “right-now” category. “He said they were upping the-”

“The Chemotherapy.” the man, looking far older now than a few moments ago, turned to her, “It’s stage four now, Tammy. It’s over.”

She sat back in her chair, almost _knocked_ back, even, and watched Albert’s eyes fall to his hands. Tammy knew Harry Truman was not well, but the extent to which was not made clear until the phone call with Frank; same goes for Alberts connection to Harry. In fairness, Tammy hadn’t had much of a chance to witness it, and the remorse bubbled up the longer she was by her mentor’s side.

Albert’s words didn’t make sense to her, not because of the context, but because of whose mouth they came from.

 _“It’s over.”_ It simply didn’t compute.

“You can’t say that.” She was prepared to fight him on that.

“And why the fuck not?” The overly familiar aggression returned to form, “Am I not allowed a moment of recession? A second of acceptance that it’s just never going to improve, for me, or anyone I care even remotely for?”

The urge to leap out of the room and run, run anywhere at all, sharply grew in the both of them. Tammy’s teeth grated, and Albert practically made tears in the blanket with how tight he crushed it in his fist.

Cooper, Diane, and Harry; Gordon was a lost cause. Hell, even Chet, though a pain in the ass, left something stinging when he set off for Deer Meadow and never returned. Passing Sam’s empty face in the labs and hall knocked him half off his feet every single time, and he got sick of that pretty damn quick. A week after Coop walked into that forest, he looks into the mirror and sees that emptiness stamped directly to him. Harry helped wash some of that off, until the test results were mailed in, and Albert sensed it clouding him once more.

Harry, god help him, never faltered in his firm disposition, for his friends’ and family’s sake more than his own. The gray space in the photograph reserved for Coop made a couple cracks in the act, but nothing a tight-lipped smile couldn’t fix. Josie’s death taught him a blunt lesson. Cooper’s disappearance reaffirmed it. Bobby, Lucy, Andy, Hawk, Frank, and even young Wally all knew better, but the man’s insistence on remaining - falsely - optimistic forced them to carry on by his side. Albert saw through the guise, and criticized it heavily, since the second it was dawned. _That_ was the lesson Cooper taught _him_. And, fuck, if it didn’t beat him worse than Harry looked after every treatment and test.

Cooper, Diane, and now Harry. His efforts, always gone unrewarded, wasted. He gave and gave, while they all burst into flames.

_I want it to end. Then I can start caring about myself, again._

The full weight of the thought impaled him, burrowed violently, and he wished it killed him. He felt a fire sharpening in size, threatening to cook him from the inside out. He could have begged Tammy to leave, to let him be a miserable heap, but swifts of violet hair brushed his nose, and skinny arms wrapped around his shoulders, clearly with no intention of releasing anytime soon. Agent Tamara Preston, hungry for clues to eternal mysteries, but instead sent spiraling into a void, which was always unsatisfied with those it steals away. He pulled her closer.

“Tamara, I want you to get out of this while you still can.”

Tammy shook in the old man’s grasp, “I-I’ve been spending time out at my parent’s place. Distant, quiet… just to clear my head. That’s what I need-”

“You need a new profession.” Albert clutched the young woman, like he was sure she’d disappear from him. “I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night and see you at the foot of my bed, far-off like a fog, then vanish like you’ve never set on this planet before. I won’t have that.”

She’d been so sure of herself, but these past three months have pushed her farther and farther, this being the ultimate shove into uncertainty. Tammy didn’t want to abandon what she worked for, but after staring dead on into the cracks of time and space, interacting with what shouldn’t be, and seeing what it _does_ to those who dance too long in its gaze, for the first time in years, she didn’t know what she truly wanted anymore.

Albert hoped those words meant something to her, and made a fracture in the cycle. They sat there embracing, despite Albert’s restraints. The tiniest tinge of something “alright” around the corner pricked his mind, which he hadn’t faced since he and Harry first buried their hatchets and loved one another as equals.


End file.
